Fire and Fantasy: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban and Epic Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  Twenty-Five

  “How long is he gonna be like that?” Mama Neck Tie asked, taking a long drag of her clove cigarette and tugging down the scarf around her neck so she could exhale from the slit in her throat.

  “As long as it takes,” Saras said, reaching through the low blue flame that covered Charlemagne to lay a hand over one of his newly healed gashes. It was hot like an engine operating at full capacity. She felt his forehead and, finding it cool, withdrew her hand, moved to the sleek, espresso-stained dresser against the far wall and pulled a wrinkled envelope from it.

  “Count it.” She handed it to Mama Neck Tie.

  “We go way back, chère. I trust you.”

  “You know what to do?”

  Mama Neck Tie clamped her cigarette between her brown teeth, reached into her enormous cleavage and withdrew a folded paper bag stained with what looked like yesterday’s lunch. She put on the pair of reading glasses hanging around her neck and, after peering over their rims at Saras, began to read.

  “Take out Flannacán.”

  “Only use deadly force if you have to,” Saras corrected.

  “This is Flannacán map Cinid ocus Barita seirbhíseach Mahb Tóisech we’re talking about. Force will be used and I can’t imagine it being anything but deadly.”

  At Saras’s glare, she conceded with a mumble, “Customer’s always right, that’s what I say.” Reaching behind her ear, Mama Neck Tie pulled out a pencil and used the sharp point to scratch her scalp. She flicked the beetle she’d accidentally speared off the tip, then made a notation on her list.

  “Bring Dragon back here.”

  “Unharmed,” Saras emphasized.

  “Un—un, two Ns?” The zombie raised her eyes to Saras who ignored her. “Harmed,” Mama finished. With a nod at her list, she tucked it back into her bosom and fit the pencil behind her ear. Taking a huge drag of her cigarette, she took off her glasses and pointed them at Saras.

  “How you gonna spin this to your homegirl? She’s bound to kick up a fuss when she finds out you ordered the hit on her boyfriend.”

  Guilt hit Saras like a crashing wave and receded just as quickly.

  Mahb’s Stash was real.

  I’m assuming she’s not an idiot and will look to those closest to you once she figures out you don’t have Mahb’s Stash.

  Her power was alive. For years since it was stolen from her, Saras had searched for it like it was a lost child. And wasn’t it just?

  Given to her in dribs and drabs when she was first called to divine service, she’d nurtured every bit of her magic, rejoicing at every promotion and milestone reached.

  Fel doesn’t have what she’s looking for.

  Dragon. Somehow she had Saras’s magic. If Dragon were here right now, she would understand that Saras was simply doing what she had to and would likely offer to help.

  Saras didn’t respond to Mama Neck Tie and motioned for her to follow her out of the bedroom.

  “She loves that boy,” the zombie persisted, then threw up her hands at Saras’s stony look. “None of my business.”

  “She doesn’t love him. She thinks she does because, because—”

  “Because Fel fucks like a half-starved incubus?” Gemma offered from the dog cage she was currently being housed in.

  Intent on wringing the former demon’s neck, Saras stalked to the cage and ripped the sheet she’d hastily thrown over it.

  “Well, well, well,” Mama Neck Tie said, lumbering closer to the cage. Raising her glasses she examined Gemma thoroughly. “How are the mighty fallen.”

  Scowling, Gemma wrinkled her nose at the stench that followed the zombie like a loyal hound, her disgusted gaze inventorying Mama Neck Tie’s ripped, mangled and molding attire. When she noticed the still-burning cigarette between Mama’s fingers, Gem’s face became neutral. “You gonna finish that?”

  A smirk broke out on Mama Neck Tie’s face, ballooning into a grin and finally exploding into a wheezing chuckle. “Lord chère, you just made my day.” She handed the butt to the demon-turned-gorgeous human and faced Saras. “Wait ߴ’til I give this joke to Snooz and dem down at Molasses!”

  “She’s in service, too,” Saras added gleefully, knowing that the zombie would spread the news better than the morning edition, and knowing too that word of Gemma’s slavery would quash any hope the demon had of regaining her former glory. What self-respecting miscellus thug would be intimidated enough to follow the orders of a mere human, and a slave at that?

  “You lie!” Mama Neck Tie said incredulously. Without waiting for an answer, she started to laugh, her big belly and gigantic bosom shaking so hard Saras feared they’d fall right off.

  The zombie’s hoarse cackle was infectious and Saras found herself giggling harder and harder until tears fell.

  “Lord, that was good,” Mama Neck Tie said, smiling as she used a filthy bandana to blot the sweat from her forehead. Patting the many pockets and hiding places of her tattered layers and apparently satisfied with what was there, she grinned and nodded at Saras. “Girl, I’m gone. Won’t take me but a minute to find Flannacán. You said he left to dump your bloody carpet?” she continued at Saras’s nod. “Butcher’s Alley is the best place to leave it. Blood runs like a river outside them packing plants. Only the Sun herself would be able to distinguish what from what down there and ain’t no way she’s doing that shit herself.

  “Should be on his way back by now. I’ll take care of him, get your girl and be back here in say, an hour?”

  “Sounds good.” Saras escorted the zombie to the front door, holding it open until her stench followed her out.

  With a sigh, Saras leaned against the closed door and went over every aspect of her plan, examining it for flaws, holes or loose ends. Dragon would be pissed, but she’d get over it. Fel would hate her and so would his friend once he recovered, but that didn’t concern her. Whatever threat they could ever pose would be trumped once she had her divinity back.

  “You’re going down a bad road, Sarasvati,” Gemma said, drinking from the water bowl Saras had left for her.

  “I’d learn to shut the fuck up if I were you. Most miscellus consider talking meat prey.”

  “I’m just saying,” Gemma continued, examining a bit of kibble from another bowl, before popping it in her mouth. “Collecting wrongs tends to become a vicious cycle, kind of like addiction. One hit is all it takes for you to want more. Two hits and all you can think about is the next high. Three and whether you want to stop or not, your body can’t function without it.

  “Oh I know I only deal in drugs, but I learned everything I know about selling downstairs. There, wrong is the only product available. ‘Get’em hooked and you’ve got a customer for life’ was our mission statement. And if they have kids,” she closed her eyes, her face the picture of bliss, “they pass that addiction on like it was a cleft chin and dimples. Guaranteed customers, and all it takes is one good hit.

  “You got how many wrongs under your belt already?”

  With a few measured steps, Saras was at her mantle, fingering the twelve-inch wrench she’d forgotten there days ago.

  “I’m sure Fel and his buddy will help you learn your place, but I have a feeling they won’t mind if I warm you up a bit.” Saras picked up the heavy tool and moved toward the whimpering woman.

  Between the duffel bouncing against her hip and the stitch in her side, Dragon was forced to stop in front of Royal Check & Chicken to catch her breath. She moved into the shadows of the doorway next to the check-cashing joint and sent a quick prayer to the few remaining deities she knew of that she’d reach Fel and that they’d be able to evade the Sun. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the doorway and walked right into Leyton, the scent of overproof rum wafting off of him like he’d been cooked in the stuff.

  “Hey there, sweetness. What’s your hurry?” His gaze latched onto Dragon’s breasts like a hungry baby.

  “Get outta my way.” Dragon tried to step around him, but Leyton sidled to
the right to block her.

  “I asked around,” he rasped. “Heard you like to fix people up new. Long as they is broke down, you’re in it to win it. Well, I’m here to fill out an application, ߴ’cause I’m definitely fucked up!” He guffawed and ran his palm over the front of his pants, his erection evident.

  Dragon despaired as her body heated at the thought of one last hit, and before she could conjure the image of her and Fel riding off into the sunset to counteract it, a shot of bliss hit her heart like a syringe full of adrenaline.

  Ride one more high, a multitude of voices urged as she soared. See how good it can be?

  She nodded, mesmerized by the pleasure running through her body. “One for the road,” she said, repeating their sentiments out loud. She reached to cup Leyton’s grizzled jaw. “And afterward we will bathe in your blood.”

  Leyton stumbled back before her fingers touched his flesh. “What’s wrong with you, gal? You on drugs or something?”

  “Flesh,” Dragon said her voice lost among the thousands murmuring in her head. “Steaming meat, soaked in blood. Not fresh,” she said her nostril flaring as she scented Leyton. “No, not fresh, but ripe. Keep us pink for days.”

  Leyton backed away, terror flattening the bulge in his pants. “I changed my mind,” he stammered, tripping over a cardboard box full of refuse and falling on his ass. “Flannacán can have you! Just don’t touch me!”

  She halted then, the power inside her shrinking away from the sound of Fel’s name as if it was a shadow conquered by a bright light.

  “Flannacán?” she said, forcing her psyche to swim up through the receding miasma of blood and longing.

  Using her hesitation to his advantage, Leyton scuttled further away, standing up to put a rusted mailbox between himself and Dragon. “Yeah, Flannacán. Figured since you’d fuck him, you’d do anybody. Sweet Jesus, girl, look at your arm.”

  Dragon glanced down at her arm and watched a line of fat, black ants crawl out of a hole in her flesh like a volcanic eruption. The sight was enough to dispel the last of the high she’d gotten as an incentive, and she frantically brushed at the mound of ants. Dragon jumped away from their falling bodies that melted into the sidewalk as they landed and looked at Leyton, her heart pounding.

  “What is that?” she stammered, moving away from the spot where the ants disappeared toward Leyton.

  “Some kind of sexually transmitted something,” he said, throwing a small, wrinkled paper bag at Dragon as he backed away from her, using two gnarled fingers to approximate a cross.

  The bag hit her chest and she grabbed it before it could fall. “What’s this?”

  “Daily giveaway from the free clinic on Cedar: air, methadone, some Band-Aids, a lollipop and some condoms.” He looked Dragon up and down, focusing on her perfectly innocuous forearm before taking several more steps away from her. “Too late for any of that shit now.”

  “I don’t have a disease,” she insisted, rubbing the flesh that recently flowed insects like lava.

  “You got something, that’s for goddamn sure. Ain’t surprised—where that tail has been.”

  “At least I’m not a murderer,” she shot back, examining the pores of her arm.

  “You had ants crawling out of your body. That shit trumps killing every day of the week. And your boyfriend’s a ’ho? Shee-it, ain’t nothin’ I ever did add up to being that fucked up.”

  “Piss off, Leyton, before I vomit spiders all over you.” She wiggled her fingers ominously. “Daddy longlegs crawling all over your decrepit body.”

  He stopped cowering behind the mailbox at the threat, standing tall and pointing a damning finger at her. “Fuck you, bitch,” he said with such a magisterial tone, Dragon could almost see a conical hat, purple robes and judgmental scowl on the homeless alcoholic. “You and your triflin’ boyfriend.” He started walking away, scratching his head. “Saw that muthafucker walking through the park with a rolled up carpet over his shoulder like he was an upstanding citizen,” he complained. “What’s the world coming to when a ho can just walk through the fucking park without saying hey to one customer?”

  “Bliss Gate Park,” Dragon said, putting Leyton and her new skin condition out of her mind. Shoving the bag of preventatives in her duffel, she sprinted south towards the park’s entrance.

  Panting and sweating, Dragon approached the tower that stood sentry at Bliss Gate’s threshold. Like everything else in this city, the walls lining the boundaries of the park had been reinterpreted by K'Davrah’s breathtaking hand. A disapproving stone wall had been transformed into a two-foot thick sterling silver rose hedge. Towering well above Dragon’s head, the thoroughly tarnished hedge enclosed the nearly four hundred acres of the park and grew—though at a nearly invisible pace—as any rose bush would, occasionally wilting heavy, blackened petals that pinged on the ground like the upper register of a vibraphone.

  The tower that had sprung up at the once gateless entrance now resembled a fantastical home of Babel with tiered architecture that appeared to reach the heavens and echoed with the musical squeaks of meep bats.

  A tunnel hewn through the tower led to the park’s grounds and Dragon stumbled through it. Finding a stick as she walked down the main path, she stuck it in an overflowing garbage can, swishing it around until it was dripping with the marinade of a long summer’s day worth of trash.

  Keeping her arm stiff, she held it high in the air as first one or two, then hundreds of blink fleas landed on the fragrant stick, their tiny bodies glowing with hormones indicating their readiness to asexually reproduce.

  Torch in hand, Dragon continued quickly down the moonlit main path, hoping the torch’s light green glow would help Fel locate her.

  She jerked her head to the left when she heard her name shouted and peered through the dark until the shadowy blur jogging towards her resolved itself into Fel’s long, clean lines.

  With a relieved smile she hurried to meet him, not seeing the fist barreling toward her face until it was too late. Pain blossomed as the force of the punch sent her flying backward. She slid along the path for a few feet, gravel shredding the shirt she wore and her flesh. Her head collided with the stone base of the statue of Halo City’s first mayor, the impact forcing her to swallow the blood from her broken nose before knocking her out cold.

  Too far away to stop the zombie, Fel watched, terror suffusing him, as Dragon ran into that hit and flew backward like a punted football.

  The zombie turned to face him even before Dragon landed and grinned, wincing melodramatically when Dragon’s head thunked against the statue. Holding up her weapon of choice, a large cast-iron skillet, Mama said, “Let’s go, boy. I got a schedule to keep.”

  The procedure he’d perfected during K'Davrah to dispatch an assassin came back to Fel as easily as muscle memory and he stalked towards Mama Neck Tie, feinted right and left to avoid the pan then jabbed at the zombie’s throat. He twisted to avoid an uppercut aimed at his kidneys and plucked a rusty cleaver from the zombie’s belt before kicking her into a grove of Pilate’s cactus.

  Knowing he only had moments before Mama Neck Tie extricated herself from the trees’ razor-sharp needles, Fel raced to Dragon and checked her pulse.

  “There,” he muttered relieved and began checking her neck and spine before straightening her crumpled body.

  The faint scrape of gravel was all the warning he got before Mama Neck Tie swung her skillet with enough force to send Fel’s head over the bleachers and out of the park.

  He dropped to his back, just missing the blow, and rolled away from Dragon.

  The zombie came after him, cactus needles protruding from every inch of her, swinging her pan wildly and he leapt to his feet, dodging her weapon and backhanding the dulled edge of his cleaver across her big stomach before ramming his foot against her kneecap.

  Mama Neck Tie tumbled to the ground and rolled away just as Fel raised his foot over her head. Getting to her feet, she switched the pan to her left hand and withdrew
something long and sharp with her right.

  One of the needles from the Pilate’s cactus, Fel guessed as they circled each other.

  Neatly avoiding the swinging pan, Fel allowed her a small opening to puncture his upper arm, so he could drag the cleaver across her femoral artery. Hardly a disabling wound for a zombie, but Fel had stopped thinking the moment he ascertained that Dragon was still alive and now operated on equal parts rage and adrenaline.

  A wave of dizziness swirled his brain and he felt another needle slide into his thigh and neck before he shook it off and sliced the zombie’s face, widening her smile.

  He took a deep breath to strike at her again, but was arrested by the sensation of salt spray cooling his face and his body floating atop gentle waves.

  “No,” he croaked, stumbling backwards and falling into the grass at the path’s edge. “Not like this,” he said and tried to stand only to feel his foot slide through the suddenly liquid ground.

  “Just relax, chère and try to enjoy it.” The zombie limped over to him and fell to her knees next to his right arm. She wiped at the brackish sludge seeping from her sliced face before digging in one of her many pockets and withdrawing another syringe, still in its sealed packaging, and a baby food jar filled with a glowing green liquid.

  Placing the jar on the ground next to her, she turned away from Fel while she loaded the long plastic tube of the syringe.

  “That’s too much,” Fel said, struggling again to get up, but only succeeding in raising his head. He let it fall back, unsurprised by the familiar sensation of water splashing over his face and up his nose.

  “It’s just enough,” Mama Neck Tie said, her smile grotesque as she slapped at Fel’s arm to raise a vein and speared it with the needle.

  With a low groan, Dragon raised her hand to gently probe her throbbing face. Guessing that her nose was broken, she sat up, nearly passing out again as her brain registered the pain of her pulverized back.

  She reached for her torch lying next to her and used it to help her stand, squishing the handful of blink fleas that still stuck to the branch.